Projecting a light through a housing to provide information is commonplace. Examples include but are not limited to computer keyboards that include indication lights for functions such as “Caps Lock” or “Num Lock”, computer monitors that include an “on/off” light, automobiles that include lights to indicate whether heated seats are on or off, or whether an air bag is on or off; televisions with indicator lights, and a whole host of other consumer electronics.
A common way to provide for such indication lights is to provide a projecting light that is visible when the light is off and brightly lit to indicate when the light is on. A collection of lights, or holes for lights, may be disruptive to the objectives of an industrial designer.
One method of attempting to make the holes for lights less visible is to drill very small, tapered holes and fill them with a transparent material. Such holes can be formed using mechanical drills, lasers, electrical discharge machining or chemical etching. One way of forming such holes is described in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/742,862, assigned to the Assignee of the instant invention. Generally, methods taught therein include drilling holes, called vias therein, through a substantially opaque panel or similar article, filling them with transparent material, setting the filler material and cleaning the surface to remove excess material from the viewing surface of the article.